The Sage and the Housewife

Sometimes my pen will not move at all. My pen and my thoughts often experience paralysis together, especially when I have had a run with U.G. What else can you expect when you return day after day for eight continuous years to spend your leisure time with a person who makes it clear that he does not give two hoots about you! It makes me question my noble intentions. It hurts my feelings not just in relation to U.G., but affects all my other relationships as well. I have tried to wean myself away from his company. But it is difficult. Sometimes when I am licking my own wounds and thinking of putting some distance between myself and U.G. my daughter would get sad for not seeing him for a few days. She would not sing and would go around with a long face, not laughing at any of the jokes which usually do not fail to amuse her. I would invariably give in and ring U.G. if only to see a smile return to my child's face. He is more in my thoughts when I am trying to break away than when I j...

January 21, 1988 was different from all other days. Usually we came to see U.G. and talk about our seemingly endless personal problems, but this day we were all assembled to discuss U.G.'s problem. His difficulty was strange: why had we for so many years come to him again and again despite his repeated announcement that he could not help us at all, that he had no wares to sell, that we were wasting our time if we thought we would get anything? He said that he could not make himself available to people for this reason. He added that he wanted it made absolutely clear that what he was saying should never be given any spiritual or mystical overtones by us. Whatever he said was to be stripped clean of any and all religious content, period. I, unfortunately, happened to be sitting right under his nose. So, looking for someone to direct his rage, he said to me, “Why do you come day after day, wasting your money, knowing that you can't get a thing here? Why do you and others come here...